Original Yu-Gi-Oh Series

Parallel

Chapter 039

Originally Written: Saturday, April 16, 2022 828AM to 915AM

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A/N: Thank you to my wayward reviewer(s). I see you! Thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed and looked at this story as well.

In other news, I apologize for the interruption, but this is too important for me to ignore or push off to the side. I put this in my profile last week, but it bears repeating or something. If you know anyone who has any form of disability or mental illness, trust your gut when communicating with their social workers and/or caretakers and/or doctors. Do not let the social worker/caretaker/doctor brush off any medical complaints or concerns the individual has as a symptom of their mental illness or let them say it's them acting out or being silly. Light a fire under their asses and keep it there as long as you need to. Better safe than sorry. Always.

Thank you.

. . . . .

After the first two duels, there was a short break for snacks or lunch. It was an interesting tournament, as in most tournaments, the duels took place pretty much one after another. The Battle City finals however, slowed the pace down considerably.

Joey walked down the hall, with a partially eaten sub sandwich in his hands. He took another bite, humming to himself. The blimp wasn't very big compared to other blimps, but it still took a while to get where you wanted to go. Eventually however, he got to where he wanted.

The Duel Academics blimp had an entire medical suite. Ishizu was so amused with what Joey had done, that when he asked if she saw where not-Marik went after the duel, she answered with a small warning to be careful.

He strolled in and waved to the head nurse.

"Do you need anything Joseph?" The head nurse was a woman with dark brown hair tied in a tight bun.

"Eh, just came to check up on not-Marik." He shrugged his shoulders and took another bite of his sandwich.

The nurse gave him a look like she wanted to question either his actions or his sanity, but she got up anyway. "This way."

She led him over to the far corner of the room. Not-Marik was sitting up, reading scrolls of all things. Old time scrolls. Bandages were wrapped around both his arms. Bandages Joey hadn't noticed nor seen while he was dueling.

"Hey-lo!" Joey waved.

Not-Marik looked up for a moment, narrowed his eyes in a glare, and then tried to pretend Joey didn't exist.

"Don't ignore me! I came all dis way ta check on ya!"

"Don't bother him long, Joseph." The nurse ordered.

Joey waved her off with a hand.

"...Why?" Not-Marik ran his finger under a line of what looked like fancy scribbles to Joey.

"'Cause I liked our duel. Lightning strikes and everything." Joey took another bite of our sandwich. "Glad nothing hit ya."

Not-Marik looked up, "I am not your friend, Joseph."

"Eh, call me Joey, and then ya gotta chance." Joey pulled up a chair and sat next to his bed.

Despite not wanting him there, Not-Marik entertained Joey in conversation. He learned quite a few things that Not-Marik didn't quite say out loud. The first was that the real Marik wasn't pleased he didn't try to play the fake Wing Dragon of Ra card in full which was why he was in the medical bay with bandages wrapped down his arms. The next was not-Marik really didn't appreciate Marik trying to kill him via making the gods angry at him. That was why Joey now knew that Mai's best strategy against Marik was taking the god card away from him, so he couldn't play it, but not playing it herself. The next was not-Marik literally saved his own life by begging for forgiveness during the duel, which Bakura had said he did when he dropped to his knees. He honestly hadn't thought Ra would have had mercy on him. The next thing he learned was not-Marik was Marik and Ishizu's older adopted brother. And the last was his name: Odion.

Joey skipped off with a new 'kind of'-friend who lived in a family unit that probably had no idea of the definition of the word abuse, something which Joey remedied immediately. He even showed Odion how to search for information on such things on his burner cell phone. He didn't say it was a burner cell phone, but Joey knew it was. He threw the wrapper of the sandwich he finished into a garbage can like he was making a basketball shot, it rolled around the rim a few times before dropping in.

He found Mai about an hour later. She was preparing for her duel with Marik in her personal suite. He scooted onto the seat next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Ya know I like ya, right?"

"You are not giving me tips for my duel." Mai didn't even look at him. "And don't grab any tips from my cards."

"Who would do that? Not me. No way." Joey smiled and leaned his head on her shoulder. "So, Marik tried to kill not-Marik during and after the duel. I'm pretty sure before too, but he ain't say."

"Which is all the more reason why I should duel him, without doing anything to upset him. Bakura said there's a knife in the handle of the Millennium Rod. Instead of stabbing us, he decided to play a children's card game instead." Mai did a fancy trick shuffling her cards.

"Does nothing phase you? Not-Marik is his older brother, ya know."

Mai rolled her eyes. "Dueling versus stabbing. I'm not forfeiting."

Joey pouted and looked away.

Mai set her cards on the table. "Thank you for your concern, Joey. I really appreciate it. But this isn't something I can just walk away from. Marik is a knife wielding, mind controlling nut job who has decided to play a children's card game instead of freezing everyone mentally and just stabbing us while we can't move. If I can stop him or change his mind through a duel, I will try. That's the only humane choice, Joey."

Joey sighed, he lowered his arm from around her shoulder. He fell back against the chair, and looked up at the ceiling. "Serenity said the same thing, but she don't know how to play."

"Then you already know to let me duel." She picked up her cards.

Joey chuckled, "You're gonna kick his butt, Mai. Mom jeans and all."

Understandably, Mai shoved him. In return, Joey told her about shadow games, including explaining why Pegasus' duel against Yugi at Duelist Kingdom was mostly a fuzzy blur in her memories.